• "News Corp withdraws bid for BSkyB" said the Sky News headline. An exclusive from its City editor Mark Kleinman – completely ignoring the fact that company announcements are supposed to come out via the BBC's Robert Peston. One theory suggests that Peston did, in fact, have the story first. He just took too long to communicate it. Ah well.

• "I could not believe the way they treated me," said former assistant commissioner Andy Hayman yesterday, 24 hours after his variety show performance in front of the home affairs select committee as it considered the hacking farrago. But the comedy came from him. The MPs merely helped. There wasn't a deafening cry of sympathy from former Met colleagues. Nor much political sympathy. Certain Labour members will have particularly enjoyed his discomfort; for there has always been a view that Hayman was the architect of much of the party's woes over its ill-advised attempt to secure a 90-day detention power for terror suspects. It is said that as head of anti-terrorist operations he met up with Tony Blair. What do you need, Tony is said to have asked. Well, we'd like longer to detain these people. How long? Ninety days, was the reply. Many believe that was merely the Yard's opening gambit. But 90 days it is, said Mr Tony, apparently. A handshake later, both men and the government were staring into the abyss.

• The parallel police inquiries prompted by the hacking scandal continue, but how to tell them apart? Well, one is called Elveden; the other, focusing on the hacking itself, is called Weeting. And what to tell about those two names? Well, Weeting is in Norfolk. Elveden is in Suffolk, but borders Norfolk. And who was the former chief constable of Norfolk? Andy Hayman, whose contribution to the first half-baked police inquiry led to this week's jollities in parliament. Do you think someone is having a dig?

• A disconcerting time for Independent editor-in-chief Simon Kelner. He was undermined by proprietor Alexander Lebedev, who said the paper was "a bit boring", and recently he relinquished its day to day stewardship. He was also called upon to defend columnist Johann Hari, who has since been suspended, having admitted borrowing other people's quotations. And a certain discombobulation might explain why Kelner devoted his entire column in the Indy's sister paper today critiquing the performance of the Today programme's Justin Webb, broadcasting from Salford – when the presenter dispatched from London with some fanfare was in fact the other Today young 'un, Evan Davis. But then these blokes with microphones: who can say which is which?

• And the Sunday Times says everything was above board as it investigated Gordon Brown's purchase of a flat in Westminster. No, it wasn't, says Gordon. But amid the din, there is another question. What of the claim from Sarah Helm, the journalist, playwright and wife of former Blair chief of staff Jonathan Powell, that the paper printed on its front page material stolen from her bin? The dates are a bit hazy, she tells us. The rest she remembers. "They obviously couldn't make head or tail of the writing but because there was a No 10 letterhead they decided they were on to a great scoop. The only words you could see were Mandelson and Dome." Enough for a construct, she says. "They thought, we'll put it on the front page anyway. I remember asking the editor about it." So did we. When the time is right, he will speak.

• Finally, though the British love the underdog, one wonders whether News Corps is overdoing it a little by allowing Rupert Murdoch to be pictured all unkempt, like the lead character in Shameless. We've seen him being doorstepped in his baseball cap, taking his constitutional in Hyde Park, accompanied by his solicitous trainer, pursued by a brute from the Mirror. We see these things and because we are human, we note a certain vulnerability. We see much less of his son James, who is full of beans and actually in charge of the day-to-day. Funny that, isn't it?